h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well, not quite. But it did snow - substantially - in South Texas, a place that, due to the heat and humidity, is considered pretty close to hell by some travellers. I live near Houston, which in some years does not even get to freezing, but this time it snowed, and on Christmas Eve, no less. People were building snowmen on the beaches in Galveston, and cities south of here, all the way to Mexico, got up to a foot of snow. I walked out of the house to watch and saw many camera flashes going off - same as the last time it snowed here, decades ago.

(Never thought I'd get to use that smiley).

So today I got pretty sweaty joggng, should be up to about 72 F this afternoon, 80 F tomorrow. OK with me, one cold day is enough for a year.

Wow. We had no snow on Christmas. It was supposed to snow but it sounds like all you southerners took our snow. That's ok really. You can have it. I live in Nebraska btw. In case anyone was wondering.

Nebraska sounds like a pretty cold place to be in the winter. I grew up in Oklahoma and remember being pretty miserable delivering papers at 4 AM in the ice & snow. This winter our house near Houston got pretty cold so we called a repairman, who said our attic heating unit was bad. "There's a heater up there?" I asked? "Not much of one" he said, but a couple thousand dollars later there was.

Aw-w-w, poor you. The week before Christmas we were in a deep freeze here - Winnipeg Manitoba - it got down as low as equivalent of -38C, don't know -F, but -40C is -40F, including windchill.

How to cope? Longjohns, heavy socks, winter boots, corduroy pants, 2 sweaters (one an all over pattern, hand knit, and the thickness of 3 sweaters), downhill ski pants, duffle coat, 8 foot scarf wrapped round and round the head and neck, over a hand-knit helmet that comes down to the eyebrows, ski mitts on the hands, and take the bus - no walking to work. Exposed skin would freeze in less than 10 minutes.

Victoria, Australia. Christmas warm. I like! Although I'd love to have a white Christmas, just once... My boyfriend and I hope to be in Europe for next Christmas, so maybe my wish will come true

Hey, Winnipeg! I had an assignment at the refinery there - St. Boniface, actually, a suburb as I recall. Long ago, I vaguely recall hearing the refinery had shut down.

I also had assignments in Edmonton, Alberta, but all my Canadian work was in the summer, very pleasant. They also talked about minus 40 (F=C). And they said if you wanted to get REAL cold, try Ft. McMurray ... where they decided to build an asphalt plant (the black, hardened oil residue that paves many roads), AND start it up in the middle of winter.

I've been reading a great book titled "Across the Top of the World" about the search for the northwest passage. For roughly the first half of the 19th century, the British Navy sent ship after ship through the maze-like Canadian archipelago in the arctic. And ship after ship got stuck in the ice, some for years on end, some forever.

Maybe I'll visit that area sometime ... if they ever have a mild summer.

Hello Steve K! Yes, St Boniface is the French area of Winnipeg. It can be lovely here in summer, warm to really hot days, long warm evenings, and Winnipeg is well-treed, lovely for evening walks, as long as you watch which areas you walk in. (Now I've made myself REALLY hate winter!) Its a really tough city in some areas: the North End, North Main Street, some parts of downtown. I foreget how many murders this year - 30-odd. Here's the area where I live:
http://www.mts.net/~ovbiz/

We had a blizzard last night into this morning. I was supposed to work till 9:30 last night, and they sent us home at 8:30 because of the blizzard. I caught the 7:51 bus! Check out http://www.winnipeg.cbc.ca/
for stories of our storm. Its cold now, a good New Years Eve to stay in with a good movie, just what we're doing.

I'd love to see our North, and tried for a Purchasing job at Ft McMurray at the oil sands project, but didn't get it.

Happy New Year, all - have fun, but be safe.

BB - Looks like a nice area ... at least when the blizzards are over. But you can be thankful you have no hurricanes, the local flavor of "storm" here on the Texas Gulf Coast. Still, I'll take hurricanes over tornadoes (rare here and weaker than in Oklahoma, my home state) or earthquakes. At least with hurricanes, you get some warning, and you can

stace8383 - My wife and some friends visited Australia on vacation a few years back. She missed Victoria, doing probably more the first timers tour - Sydney, Cairns/Barrier Reef, and Uluru. She had a good time and may be back, but boy, talk about a long flight from Houston - about a month on an airplane, I think ...

Absolutely! And I'll take our blizzard over the Tsunami any day!

Steve K - sounds like your wife did all the tourist things and missed the best part of Australia!

I admit I'm biased, I love Victoria, I've lived here all my life - although I've been holidaying in almost every other state and teritory we have. But we've got it made down here. We've got wineries, bushwalks, sports events, historic gold mining towns, beaches, musicals, galleries... you name it, it's here somewhere!